This Rome: Total War FAQ is entirely made from Gone Golder’s responses in the Help/Advice thread in the forum formerly known as Gone Gold. My intentions for this FAQ is to have a place where anyone can easily find answers or tips without having to search 6+ pages. Please continue to use that thread for questions and help. Everyday I’ll comb through it and add new questions and tips to this FAQ.In that thread, someone suggested that we should make a FAQ so that people who need help can easily find the answers. I took that upon myself and went through the 6+ pages and gathered on the questions and answers. Not every question that is in that thread is not on this list, However once I finish updating, I’ll go back and create a section for unanswered questions, hopefully as we all play more, the answers will come.These questions are not verified to be accurate. Like I said, it’s a copy and paste job from the other thread. If you find a discrepancy please let me know by email that way I can correct it. I rather have it by email so it will be easier to follow up and make the corrections.This FAQ will always be 1 day behind, since I do not have internet connection at work. However because my work is an absolute bore, I save the Help/Advice thread the night before and send it to my work where I work on the FAQ. So if you see things that haven’t been added, that is why. I hope this FAQ helps you as it has helped me. Please continue to post your advice and questions in the help/advice thread, once they are answered I’ll include them to this FAQ. Thanks again for the compliments, however it couldn’t be done without you guys. All I had to do was sort the info out

If reinforcement is from your faction but does not have a FM, while the army under your control does (or maybe having your own FM isn't necessary, I'm not sure), the new units will also come under your control. They will first appear as grayed-out icons in your army, and then become fully under your control as they enter the battle arena. This is as good as it gets for reinforcements.

If reinforcement is from your faction and does have a FM (or is from a different faction), they will move to attack in a straightforward, simple way. Nothing you can do about this, except plan all your tactics around it. Use the fact that they're going to go straight at the opponent, and think about creative ways to use that reliability to your advantage.

Finally, the army that performs the attack is the army you'll command. If multiple armies from your faction are involved in the battle, make sure you initiate the attack from the army you wish to control.

B: Defending against a siege Question What are some good strategies to defend a city that is being attacked? Answer:

Phalanx troops can be extremely effective in guarding the gate when defending a city. Two phalanx units backed by some archers decisively held back a much larger reinforcement force in one particular siege I commanded. Use the phalanxes in angles from the gate (like "/ \" ) so that the maximum number of units can get "trapped" in a nice group for the archers to decimate. Set the archers to the sides so that the arrows fly over your phalanxes and into the large enemy mob. It was like shooting fish in a barrel.

C: Sieges Question: How exactly does one go about entering a city? Answer:

One way to take a city is to sap. Just drop the walls and forget about all the fancy siege equipment as fun as it is,

however, doing this leaves the walls still manned with troops, and worst of all, the towers still shooting down on your units as you race in towards the center of the city. The AI will bottleneck you at the breeches, allowing theflaming death to reign down on your exposed units. To me, the best way to take a city is to not sap at all. Build two siege towers, two ladders and one ram. Send the siege towers in first, on opposite sides of the main gate - they can take the missile abuse. Once your troops begin to man the towers, and depending on the defenses on the wall, have your ladders run up to take positions. They can scale the walls faster, but will take casualties, so it depends on the number of archer units the enemy has encamped. I usually wait until my siege towers have lowered the ramps to send in the ladders. About this time send the battering ram forward to take the gate. This will confuse the enemy, and he'll divide his forces between the wall and ground. You'll sustain a few casualties from the burning oil, but the battle for the walls and towers will be much quicker. Once the walls are clear of foot soldiers, use your units to 'take the towers' buy running though them. Make sure any towers you'll be bringing your forces by have been cleared in this manner. At this point, in my experience, the enemy is pretty well wasted and it's simply a matter of marching your troops down main street to dispatch of his remaining few units in the town square

Once you break through and rout the units guarding it, you'll want to redeploy in the area just inside the gate. How do you do this? First, change a few units so that their formation is a long column (that's 3 or 4 troops at the front) -- you'll march straight through. Second, order units inside a few at a time. This will help you avoid bunching units up or readjusting the lines at the gate, which slows your units down. When you give the orders, use RUN. Getting inside the city is of the most important things to do in a siege. As the units arrive in the city, move them forward and change the formation to something more suitable for combat in the streets. March the first units in town around a side route to the main plaza -- so you'll eventually have units arriving about the same time by the two most direct routes. Remember, city fighting needs a different strategy. So change tactics to fit a siege.

Do not use groups when entering a city. If you ungroup everything in your army and simply drag select the units you want to move in, it'll work. But you MUST UNGROUP THEM. The reason for this is that when units move in a group they try to stay in formation and won't squeeze themselves by units into the new shape.

Change the width of your units to slightly less than the smallest city street width. This will solve the problem of units bunching up on themselves and suddenly turning around for no good reason.

Rams can also be used against walls, just move the target away from the gate along the wall until you see the icon change. In the early game, I build 2 rams for each siege -- one ram attacks the gate, the second attacks the wall. If the enemy strongly controls the gate, I rush through the wall instead.

Also, for siege warfare. Saps are all well and good, but they do tend to tear up the walls. Which can be a problem if there is another enemy army nearby that will likely put you under siege as soon as you take the settlement.

In any city siege, the key is multiple points of entry to force your opponent to either commit to one or dilute his strength by trying to plug all the gaps. Assaulting wooden walls and palisades, I use no less than 2 Rams, but usually three. This usually leads to one of my units being able to make an entry unopposed.

To capture city walls intact, siege towers are probably the best. Use two siege towers and try to target walls that are undefended. The larger towers are usually impervious to fire arrows. (Note: Don't shoot your catapults when you are advancing your siege towers) When you get troops on the wall, capture enemy towers by running your units throw the towers. You can capture the gatehouse in this way and it will open up the gate as your units approach. Another advantage of captured towers is that they will now put your enemies under arrow fire

II. City Management

A: Auto Manage Question:Have people used any of the auto-management functions in the game? I did, early on, and also was displeased with the results. Those auto managers seem to like to push the blue envelope ... and off it. Answer:

If you're referring to your auto managers indulging in extreme deficit spending I noticed that there's an AI slider you can adjust to moderate your AI's spending habits. One side is "Save" and the other side "Spend". By default, the slider is pinned on the "Spend" side.

You do not need a family member to manually buy buildings and troops in a city. The Auto manage city check box is grayed out and always checked, but to the right of this check box, you can individually uncheck Construction and Recruitment check boxes. Do this and you have full management capabilities

B: Building Production Question:I can't build in two of my cities. I have a governor in one of them. I am paging the manual but no clue so far. Must be something obvious though. Answer:

It's a size issue. Some buildings don't become available until a town reached a certain population level. On the main town info screen, you can see the current level, as well as the population size you need to reach the next level. Also, on the building tree screen, it tells you which buildings aren't yet available.

Question:I'm currently on the first main campaign with Juli fighting the Gauls. Some cities that I captured, I cant built any buildings which is probably because of the population level which is growing very slow..... Am I not doing something, or some cities are not suppose to grow as fast as others?Answer:

That's just the way it is. Some grow slower or faster. After awhile they'll get going - just don't build troops more than necessary in them because that takes population away.

Lowering your tax level will also promote growth.

Question:Is there some reason why you would want to queue things up when you have a governor in place? Are building cheaper with a high management governor than building things without a governor? Answer:

Yes, some get discounts on buildings/units

C: Capital Relocation Question: How do you move your capital?Answer:

It's on the city health chart. One of the icons at the lower left mouse-over to "Change to Capital."

Question:Is it better to have your capital centrally located or in my best city. Currently my best city is on the fringe of the empire (Julii). I have a town right now that would make a good central location for a capital (in between conquered Gaul, Italy and Spain). I'm wondering if there are any benefits to having a capital in a major city or is reducing the distance penalty more important? Answer:

Centrally located is better, it will decrease amount of unrest due to the distance in other cities.

D: City Income Question:Playing as the Julii I've taken about 8 territories thus far but my 2nd most developed, Venetia... has been deep in the red throughout the game. I've built the best roads, trade, and port facilities I can (just popped to city level before I quit) but it's still in the -200 range. The governor has no negative administrative traits. Meanwhile, the rest of my empire is in the black, some nearing +1000. Answer:

Double click the settlement, and you'll see a little icon that says "detail". When you click on that, it'll have three bars that represent the three city concerns, growth, happiness, and income, and it'll tell you what is negatively throwing income out of balance so you can fix it. Really nice feature.

This happens due to a number of things. First being, a lack of tradable resources in the province. This leads to less income from trading. Less fertile lands are also a contributing factor. However, the silent killer is your military costs. The cost is divided among all your settlements based on the size of the settlement. So, since this is your 2nd largest settlement it is paying a large part of your military costs and it doesn't have that great of an income due to trade, so there isn't that much that can be done. Although, I would keep building up things like ports and roads just to make it as profitable as possible, but don't worry so much about getting it out of the red.

E: Culture ** New Entry added 10-13-04 ** Question** New Entry Added 10-13-04 ** What is the culture penalty in the settlement details screen? Where does that come from and how can I combat it?Answer

Culture penalty is based on how different your culture is versus the culture that the city was before.

They will assimilate over time, but you can speed it up by tearing down their temples and building those of your own culture. You can also build units in that city decreasing the local population, then disband other units there, increasing the Roman part of the population. Kind of like colonizing with your retired legionnaires

Three ways to combat culture:

1. Exterminate everyone in the city; or 2. Tear down the pagan temples and put up your own. 3. Disband troops in the city. Mercenaries don’t count toward pop increases.[/list]

F: Ports and Trading [/i] Question: How do ports generate income? Do they immediately give you money as soon as you build them? If so, do you have to have 2 ports active in order for the money to start rolling in? If so, does it matter how distant those ports are? Or do you actually have to build or direct a "trade fleet" in some way to get that money going? Answer:

Ports can be incredible moneymakers, but you will have to upgrade them a bit before you hit the jackpot. The more you upgrade the more little dashed lines (trade routes) are allowed. They are similar to the moving trade wagons on roads (zoom in to see them automatically move).

It seems like there's a fairly elaborate trading system behind the game that determines what a city has to trade, what is available to import, and what it's citizens want.

So if you build a port, you either need one of your own cities with a port and with a trade good available that your other city wants, or have a trade pact with another nation who has a port.

Each upgrade to the port will give you another trading fleet that will allow your city another import to tax.

Basically there's a lot going on behind the scenes, but I've never really had to pay much attention to it. As long as you consistently upgrade your ports and make trade agreements when you can your ports will have trade coming in no time.

If you want to take a look at the details of trade you can go to your city, click on the details button (middle button in the lower left) and then click on the trade information button (bottom button in the lower left of the details page). This will give you a break down of where your trade routes run to and how much money they are bringing in for you

Don't forget to send your diplomats out to secure trading rights with other countries.

If you have a port that is better than say the other roman faction ports nearby, they will sometimes caravan their goods to your port for shipping. Better yet, if you have trading rights with other factions that don’t have a port, you’ll be treated to what looks like daily rush hour traffic going to your port non-stop. I have no idea if your port charges $ for neighboring factions using your ports, it better! I do know that my best ports that have been upgraded to Dockyards usually have a steady flow of caravans headed to them from both my cities and other faction cities nearby. If your friendly neighboring cities don’t have ports, build one!

Cities that have the best ports are the clear cash cows of my empire. I haven’t figured out yet if you own a city that controls a major waterway like the straights of messina, do you get $ for all the little trading ships that pass through? That would make the cities that control the key waterways even more strategically important.

Question:Do you have to negotiate trading rights with the other Roman factions, or do you start the game with those in place? Answer:

Nope, they are in place. Most countries are pretty receptive to trading with a roman faction, so it's usually just a matter of asking

You start with trading rights to the other roman factions (and I assume you start with no diplomatic or trade ties if you start as a non-Roman faction). That extra trade sheet on the city screen gives a pretty clear indication that long-distance trade is really many many more times profitable than trading between nearby cities - so build those ports, even if you don't upgrade them, the profit is enormous.

Question:How do I create trade routes? I have ports etc, but I can't figure out how to make a trade route. Thanks! Answer:

Trade routes automatically create themselves and pick the best routes. Sometimes it takes a little while for it to appear

G: Settlement Control Panel Question:What are the flashing icons in the Settlement details window? Answer:

These appear when you've just conquered a settlement, your diplomatic status has changed, or the effect of some building is about to be removed (because the building is damaged, perhaps). In short, the way the game was calculating the city status is about to change in a significant way, and you're being warned about the loss of some benefits. Have a quick think about what has changed this turn, and you'll see the connection.

FYI, the 'transparent' icons are the ones that will appear when something on the building queue is completed.

** New Entry added on 10-13-04 ** Question: How can you see the building 'tech' tree in the game? I found it once by accident, and now I can't again. Somehow I pulled up a screen that had all the buildings I had, and what they could eventually become, with information on eachAnswer:

On the city screen and I think the unit screen as well where you can queue up buildings/units there are three (or four?) small round buttons on the bottom left. One of them is called I believe the "building browser". Click on it and the building tree should come up.

H: Squalor and Unhappiness Question:One of my larger roman cities has 95% squalor. How can I get this down? Answer:

On squalor and unhappiness:

You could always order troops from that province each turn (depletes population), or keep a large garrison there. That way, even though there's lots of squalor, the people keep their mouths shut about it. That's off the top of my head, as i haven't yet run into this problem.

Also, there is apparently a pretty good tip that the advisor gives about beating squalor. Read this at .com and .org so i think there's some veracity to it. Again, i don't know what this tip is because i haven't got to the point where i needed her help on this.

One last suggestion i read elsewhere: Pull your army out and let the damn place revolt. Come back in and crush the rebellion with your stack (should be more than sufficient), putting money in your pocket and reducing the population at the same time

I: Temples ** New category added on 10-18-04 ** Question Do the bonuses of an enemy's temple or shrine apply to you when you've conquered a city with one in it?Answer:

Yes, other cultures shrines do seem to affect your cities. This is particularly useful when it comes to the ones that (for instance) fully upgrade missile weapons, and can be had well before you get to the foundries stage.

III. Family Management Question:Does anyone know if family member bonuses are global? I saw a production, training or trade bonus on a governor. Does that apply to all cities or just the city that he is currently in? Answer:

If you have two family members in the same city with production bonuses, only the one who is officially the governor will provide his benefits to the city. Only one city can be governed at a time.

Question:Is anybody else having the problem of not enough family members? I have quickly run out of them to run my towns and still have a couple available to man armies. Answer:

It seems like the family thing is fairly random. I started out pretty well and then expanded quickly and had far too few family members. Then after a lean spell my next generation started coming of age and now I have something like 25 male family members of age and about another 15 males and females who will come of age or have husbands over the course of about 10 years.

*]Get more family members by bribing other families or by promoting units into generals. To encourage promotions just fight a lot of battles without a general and once in awhile a valiant Hastati or whatever will catch the interest of your faction and you can adopt him. [/list]IV. Tactical Map A: Diplomacy and Diplomats Question:How do you turn a city? Answer:

Offer them a bribe in the diplomatic screen.

Open diplomatic discussions. Move the dip to a city, you get a scroll that appears on the map, and then it pops open to where you have different options. Bribe is one of them. If it doesn't show your not doing it right. It worked though my bribe was not successful with one of the other Roman factions.

** New Entry added 10-13-04 ** As far as bribing goes, I believe by default by bribing you pay a lesser amount to make the enemy disband, but if some of the units in the army are playable by your faction, those units will join you for a slightly higher fee.

Question: [/b]Is there a way to get a loan from my allies?Answer:

Yes, ask them for a fixed amount, offer to pay back over time - like demand 5000 denarii, offer 500/turn for 11 turns, and see if they take it.

B: Senate Question:Missions from the Senate ,do i have to do them, is it so bad to ignore them. Answer:

If your standing falls too low with the Senate they will punish you, but they are not mandatory, especially in the beginning. The Senate is not exactly an ally, more like a rival over time.

C: Territories Question:For territory that doesn’t have a city or town to capture, how do I claim that territory? I’ve noticed several territories that have natural resources but don’t have a city or town nearby. Answer:

Nope, they are just there to fill the map and for looks. No city no province.

V Unit Management A: Assassins Question: How do I create an assassin. I want to get rid of my enemy’s diplomats and spies on the map. Answer:

You need build a Forum to recruit assassins.

The back of the map that comes with the game has a handy building tree that also has the units each building allows you to build on the back of it.

You can also guard armies by attaching assassins to march with them. I'm told this will give you the option of killing enemy agents that try anything with your protected army.

B: Spies Question:What are some of the abilities of a spy? Answer:

Spies are essential for siege warfare. Not only do they let you know what you are facing, but also the more spies you have in a city, the higher your chances of having them open the gates. With 2 spies, a 40% chance of gate opening increased to 51%. The better the spy, the better the chances.

Spy and Diplomat retinues can be moved, so you can give your best spies additional retinues to improve their skills. Better Diplomats make better deals (cheaper bribes, etc).

Spies and Diplomats age and die like Generals, so always track their ages and move retinues before they day.

Spies and Diplomats make great early game scouts. They can't be attacked, assassins aren't around yet and a diplomat can get lucky if they find a rebel family member to bribe in the wild adding to your family. Note, bribing enemy generals gives them the 'apparently loyal' trait which makes them easier to bribe by other factions.

C: Formations Question: When I want to advance my army and right-click forward of that army to get it moving, the game seems to sometimes decide their facing arbitrarily. I find myself having to constantly redraw their formations rather than just clicking on a spot where I want them to go because if I just right-click they will end up facing at some weird angle. Why doesn't it just keep them facing the same direction by default? Answer:

Highlighting all your units, and doing an ALT + Right Click will move your troops without changing their formation. I prefer this method since the grouping of troops and giving orders is a bit buggy right now--sometimes troops ignore orders and that is unacceptable.

D: Friendly Fire Question:I've often had my light infantry, which is at the moment my main fighting infantry, stop and throw javelins into an enemy formation before engaging. Now, sometimes the timing is off on this, and one infantry unit is already engaging, then two more come up to the fight, throw their javelins, and engage. The problem is, the previously engaged unit is kind of in the line of fire. Is there still a friendly fire risk when this happens, or does it only count for missile-specific units? Answer:

Yes it is a friendly fire risk on both accounts. I tell my Archers to stop firing, turn off fire at will, and then immediately move them. This stops them from firing immediately. Same with skirmishers, although by the time my main force engages they are usually out of ammo anyway.

For infantry attack, if a unit is engaged to the front, I usually try to move my other infantry unit to a flank before initiating an attack. This cuts friendly fire down and maximizes the effect of your pila on the enemy, hitting them in the middle ranks while your engaged infantry slaughters their front line. The subsequent charge usually will break any unit.

Pay attention to arc of the missile unit. If it goes pretty high, you can generally keep firing and hit mostly bad guys. If it's very flat, that won't work. Don't ever ever ever fire slingers through your ranks...those guys have a nearly flat arc and will devastate your men from behind.

As a follow-up note, this is another reason to avoid attacking uphill, and friendly fire will be more forgiving when attacking downhill or from a height.

The key to minimizing friendly fire is keeping your archers far back from the battle line so that they fire at a bigger arc. If you put your archers close behind your infantry, they will fire at a low angle and essentially shoot their own infantry right in the backs; and the casualties will be _huge_.

E: Retraining/Repairing UnitsQuestion: How do you replenish the strength of a unit? Answer:

To replenish the strength of a unit, the city it is in needs to be able to build the unit as well. You also "retrain" a unit with better armor or weapons if the city has a blacksmith

Question:Is there a way to "upgrade" your crappier early units once you construct better barracks/stables/etc? Or do I just have to disband the unit and create a new one, waiting a turn? I seem to remember seeing something about being able to use the "retrain" command to upgrade a unit to a better type, as opposed to simply replacing lost soldiers...

Answer:

If the unit is moved to a settlement with an armourer or blacksmith you can use retraining to give them better armor or weapons.

You can also upgrade ships by retraining when you upgrade your dock facilities.

F: Unit Commands Question: Anyone know a way to FORCE a unit capable of firing missile to instead engage in melee with a unit? Answer:

The command is alt+right click. Select your unit, then hold down alt and mouse over the enemy unit. You'll see the bow pointer change to a sword, then right click. Double right click for charge.

Question: How do I have a unit with limited missile capability ONLY throw their missiles at a targeted enemy unit without charging to the attack? Answer:

The only missile units that will charge automatically are the Roman legions. They appear to be coded to throw one set of pila and then charge. Right now, I don't know any way to change that behavior.

Question: How do you get a unit to face/rotate in a new direction without moving or doing the "click-drag reform?" Answer:

I think it is the "<" and ">" keys that rotate the unit facing while maintaining position.

Question: I can't figure out how to tell a group to "go here, and end up facing this way"... if there is a way to do that, that would solve my problems with facing I think. Answer:

Just click and hold the right mouse button and drag to what position you want your guys. It'll even show arrows of where they'll be and what direction they will face, so you can pause and get them exactly where you want them without them moving.

Only time I use the < > is when my guys are in the position I want them but need to change their direction in a hurry to face a new threat.

Question [/b]How do you get your Legionnaires to just throw their Pila and not charge? Answer:

Move them close to the target and then turn the Fire at Will option on. The Legionnaires will happily start tossing Pila in a way that would make Mike Martz cry

The flaming pig" technology is a useful strategy to use against stampeding elephants

You don't want spears, you want javelin men who can chuck sharp pointy sticks at them. Roman light auxila are good for this.

And also good at chariots. I used a cool special maneuver, the Cantabrian circle. My javelin cavalry road in a circle, yes they really did, avoiding the chariots but chucking javelins at them totally disrupting their charge. It was one of the coolest things I've seen. Give CA credit for the AI on that one!

VI. Generals A: Ancillaries and Retinues Question:About retinues/ancillaries: Why is it when I drag an ancillary from one of generals to another that it just goes back to the original general? I can't seem to pass any ancillaries on at all. Answer:

Make sure the General you're transferring to is in the same place as the one you're transferring from.

Certain combinations of retinues aren't possible.

Usually, the reason the retinue is not transferred (if the two guys are in the same province) is because the target guy already has the retinue you're trying to move. Common thing, that, especially since priests and retinues that are building-related pretty much get applied to all the family members in the town.

You can. You can trade diplomat retinues as well.

Question ** New entry added 10-18-04 ** How does one transfer a retinue to another member of the faction? Answer:

you have to have both people in the same place/stack in order to transfer retinues between them.

B: Generals and City Management Question:My Faction Leader is an equally good commander and manager. Is he better off managing my best city or on the front lines, boosting the troops and gaining bonuses? Answer:

I found it fairly easy to build up "commander stars". Sometimes you even get a few only hiring mercs. Managing skills are more difficult to raise, so if someone has 2-3 "scrolls" he is going to be a governor.

My good managers tend to become good generals as a matter of course. Why? Because I send them to the regions most difficult to manage, which tend to be on the frontiers, which tend to be closest to enemies, which tends to involve more battles, you get the idea.

So yes, worry about management first and command stars second, but that doesn't mean the managing general doesn't run out and sweep bandits from time to time, or shift into attacking the next province as soon as he's stabilized one to the point of self-sufficiency

Question: What do command stars do? Answer:

It currently affects both morale and combat ability - we tried it for a while with just morale, but it ended up being not enough of a bonus. The combat calculations have changed so much from Rome to Medieval as to be unrecognizable, so it's no longer easy to equate stars to experience.

As a rule of thumb it's one point of attack per command rank, up to a maximum of 10, and this can become negative for very bad generals. This combat bonus is applied to all troops under his command on the battlefield. Experience is one point of attack and one point of defense per chevron, plus a morale bonus as well.

The general's command also controls his radius-of-effect, which is set to 30 m + 5 m * command + 2 m * influence. This is used to award morale bonuses to nearby units (in addition to the combat bonus), and when testing which units are affected it tests the distance between the actual general's position and the center-point of the unit being considered. [/list

C: Promotions Question:How to promote into generals? Answer:

If a captain wins a couple battles, so that he would otherwise earn one or more stars, there is a chance he will become eligible for adoption into your family. So, if you are short on family for governor positions, make a good army stack with just the default captain, go beat up some rebels or an enemy army, and hope to get the promotion.

The Macedonian Phalanx infantry are as disciplined as your Legionnaires so they will be taught to beat in a straight up fight. Your best bet is to go on the offensive. Make sure your Legionnaires have a chance to throw their Pila and open up some holes in the spear line. Meanwhile you need to move units around the flanks. Sure a cavalry charge into a phalanx is a good way to get them killed, but if you hit the Phalanx from the side they are done.

The only problem is that the Macedonian Companion Cavalry outstrips your Equites easily and probably the Roman Cavalry as well. Your best bet is to post Triarii or your mercenary spearmen opposite your cavalry, and hold a reserve of Legionnaires on the wings.

When your front line engages, they should hold long enough for your reserve to whip around the flank and start rolling up their line. If you can get through the spears, the pikeman are virtually defenseless. This is also the same reason that Pikeman are pretty much useless in any sort of city assault.

The thing to keep in mind while fighting these guys, or any other horse heavy force, is that they cant do jack in a siege or anywhere there isn’t room to charge. If you get the horses past their shock value and into heavy fighting, their cake

Any infantry with high armor can effectively stop a charge as long as they are standing still. I keep my horses back until I can safely flank them. This has been effective against the Germans as well. Armored Hoplites are a different story.

If you can accept casualties have your archers send in a flight or two of flaming arrows*, it hits morale and may cause a demoralized unit to break.

The Macedonians also have a weak starting position, a short finger interrupted by an independent Athens. If you can hit them in the first few turns it will be far easier. Should they declare war on the Greeks they have the odds on winning (or at least taking the pelopennesus) which gives them a strong economy.

Placing a few infantry cohorts on the sides protecting the flanks to absorb flanking cavalry charges

Having 1 or 2 units of archers protected in the center of the battle formation that would rain down arrows on the slow moving phalanx units

Having velites or any type of infantry skirmisher just out in front of the main infantry line to get a few javelin throws in before the phalanx units closed in to melee. The skirmisher units will withdraw automatically as the Macedonian infantry closes the distance.

Place light and heavy cavalry units on the wings to screen when needed, and to counterattack at opportune times.

I kept my generals in the middle

If I kept this basic formation, it worked well both on defense and attacking against the Macedonians.

I used everything for the infantry cohorts: hastati, principi, merc hoplites (I liked putting them on the flanks and dragging their formation to be oriented diagonal from the front line).

I normally kept some kind of assault unit just behind my general for counter attacks or to reinforce a weakening line. Thracian mercs, velite gladiators, & war dogs all worked well.

As Scipii, facing the Macedonians will most likely be pre-marius, so being careful not to expose equites too early was something I had to keep an eye on. Legionary cavalry works well to screen the flanks, while light cavalry I found best to stick behind the general when needed. Post marius means you have much tougher infantry, real screening cavalry, and very capable archers at your disposal.

Think diffusion. The Macedonians have some the best infantry in the game, but it is terribly slow. Use mobile forces to lure their cavalry or break some phalanxes of from the side. Rather than fight the entire army at once, think of fighting it in segments. Once you split their forces, it will be very easy for you infantry (let alone cavalry) to flank phalanxes. Velites are and your general (or better another member of the faction) are tempting targets for the pondorously slow phalanx.

VIII. Mods

The Time Limit Negator! MarkP has created a utility that will let you toggle battle time limits on or off while a campaign is running, permanently and for all battles in the campaign. He calls it the RTW Time Limit Negator.

This utility will modify a campaign save-game so as to permanently enable or disable time limits in all battles within this campaign. Turning time limits on or off during a campaign is thus possible.

It works by modifying a save-game file which you then just have to load in the game.

When capturing a large city, it is almost impossible to keep it happy and out of revolt even when it is filled with troops. Solution - when taking the city, sell the population into slavery. That usually reduces the population down to manageable levels.

For taking cities, sapping works best. Just drop the walls and forget about all the fancy siege equipment as fun as it is.

Take all the island provinces - Sardinia, Crete, Rhodes, Cyprus, Balearic Islands. Easy to capture usually, don't have to worry to hard about an enemy retaking them. You can pick these up cheap.

Keep cities happy by building happiness structures, adjusting garrison levels, adjusting tax rates, and the frequency with which you hold games. You may need all these with the really large cities.

Lastly, take plenty of cavalry and ranged units when fighting the Egyptians. They can be a pain and deadly if you just have infantry.

Oops, another one - looking for opposing Roman faction cities in rebellion - keeps an army and fleet around for this. Then attack and take the city. It's an easy way to pick up another province on you way to the magic 50.

Pay attention to that city details screen (lower button on the usual city screen), and see what is affecting the three factors (population, happiness, income). The high squalor rates are beatable, and are probably realistic anyway for the time period. Sewers and baths have the most immediate effects.

Remember that there are three temple types and you can only follow one path in each city, so build the temple that increases population rate in the cities near the capital, and the one that increases lawfulness in the outlying cities to reduce corruption (like Civ3).

As someone said, not being able to build is related to city size (2000, 4000, etc), but can also be if you don't have a governor in there and didn't select the "manage cities without governor" option in the campaign start screen. You need to closely manage tax rate, and stop building units there to get the population figures up. Enslaving captured populations is a nice boost, but they do seem to get spread out pretty thinly - better if you could direct them to certain cities (or your own surplus population for that matter).

Sapping is a special ability of certain troops, iirc, rather than something you choose or purchase like a ram. I've not used it but I recall seeing it mentioned on certain light infantry units description pages. Anyone have a list of which ones? Does the strat guide have this sort of thing?

If you bribe a city you don't get the troops in it so make sure you have troops with your diplomat to move in right away or the city will (always?) revolt at the end of the turn. It is a bit annoying that you can't bribe troops to join you, but it was pretty unbalancing in M:TW anyway

I find that putting populations to the sword finances my war effort nicely. First try and get them to turn with a diplomat, and then if they resist you show them the true meaning of failure.

Capture wonders of the world - they really help. The Colossus of Rhodes gives something like a 40% bonus to trade, and is on an island. Pretty easy to keep to. Just load up an army as soon as you can and take it. The Temple of Zeus is a 20% bonus to city order so that's a nice one two, but you need to get there before the Brutii

Need to finance your conquests? Conquer some cities that you really don't need and sack (exterminate) the city. This works really well with raids into empires that you don't really plan on keeping - it weakens them but builds you up. You can also screw your Roman competitors by doing this in areas you can't hold but that they might want in the future

Tear down the other cultures temple when you take a city. Main reason - you can't upgrade those temples, so as your city grows, you can't build any improvements that bring happiness.

The quick road to financial success is through ports. Each port level adds an additional overseas trade route, and these are far more lucrative than land based routes.

There's nothing wrong with moving governors around a little. You can queue things up, then move on somewhere else. I tend to think of them more as "regional" governors.

For attacking cities with wooden walls, I find archers to be the most effective tactic. When the rams move in, move in the archers behind them, avoiding guard towers. They'll start to pound any waiting clumps of troops inside, who will start to run out of range when they come under fire. When the area around the gate is relatively clear, charge one unit through to hold the area, then bring everyone else in.

Final tip: not every town needs to build every type of unit. Have them specialize, which will save money, time, and any desired unit production should still be only a city or two away. Some towns could get away with only a small barracks, and no other military development.

Also building armies reduces citizens, so try to build only what is necessary in the early game. I don't think agents reduce population. When you enslave a city, keep in mind the population is only distributed to cities that have governors.

Later on squalor and overpopulation are going to become a problem. This (or better yet before they become a huge problem might be a good time sell that "plus to population growth" temple you've built awhile ago and replace it with "order and happiness" shrine/temple. Raise your taxes and try to keep growth within 0.5%-1.5%.

Another thing to try and combat overpopulation is to build lots of peasants in overpopulated cities, send them to some underdeveloped towns and disband them there. I wish we could sell them to slavery

I do not allow a city to grow too large too fast if I cannot control it.

Think FAR ahead (like about 10 turns + on this)

VERY HIGH taxes to slow it down.

No farms for a non-booming settlement- that's a pop boomer. I only allow myself as many pop booming cities as my faction can actually manage.

Which temple... and why. It makes a HUGE difference over the years until the city peaks out with the Pantheon.

Have family member (FM) who seems well suited to learn management skills? Place him as a gov. or, if you don't need him yet, in a city with at *least* an academy.

jump on senate requests that promise political consideration.

DON'T use your political FMs as generals unless desperate. Captains can win battles too and often then get adopted. More FM's- more political people to use, stronger Roman you will be.

Realize that riots will happen... meh, who cares- people die, buildings get damaged. It happens repair things and move on. The people will sort themselves out.

Don't confuse a city that reports -1000 denarii as a city losing money- it's probably making more money than a lot of your cities, but paying for a LOT more troops than others. Don't worry about this.

Remember what colonies really were for to the Greeks and Romans: Commercial enterprises. Design some settlements to be small, but seriously strong economic powerhouses of trade- skip the farms, do roads, harbors, forums, temple of mercury, all in one city- this maxes out your $$ and minimizes your pop- so these places can pay for those BIG cities.

Make big cities places where you draw upon for your armies a LOT. Don't conscript people from your 1000-6000 pop trading centers simply because they're conveniently located close to the front. Big cities should be making units at all times unless you have a good reason to not have it be so. I set up regular shipments of fresh recruits to the frontier from the big cities. This way I also get well-trained ones from temple of mars cities, with awesome equipment from the foundries.

Cherish your FMs who get multiple senate positions, they truly are superior at managing big cities.

Have an FM run out priests from various temples to your FMs without that priest- makes for stronger retinues- even if it is a bit micromanagy- it'll last for decades.

The further your city from your capitol the worse people will behave in the city- move your capitol if you have to.

If all you have left that's negative for people in your town is squalor, then look ABOVE that line to the positive things you can MAX out- it isn't just about minimizing squalor but maximizing the other things that can over come it.

Slow down expansion- let the culture penalty get smaller before you move on.

It's all about thinking ahead and planning, not simply reacting.

Ok, here's a good tip and one that the new 3d map allows, seems to be the first game to do this:

Move your armies carefully and you can spring a 2 army or even 3 army trap on an enemy army. I just caught a Dacian army between the hammer and anvil of two of my armies. It was really cool marching my army up a hill to find the Dacian army facing the other way towards the army that was closer to them. I promptly charged them and our two armies crushed them. Maybe 200 of their 1200 man army got away - a couple of units on the edge of the map that decided fleeing was the better part of valor. I only lost 200 men of my 1500 man joint army, many of those to friendly archer fire. Lots of fun.

For those of you having a problem with a limited supply of family members I have a few tips:

a. Send Captains out to fight battles you know you can easily win: like rebel armies. After one or two wins, there is a good chance your captain will be adopted.

b. Spend money bribing family members from other factions. As long as you aren't paying a lot of money for an old fart or someone who is crazy, buying your family is worth it.

c. Don't lose generals early on in the tactical battles. Use your generals to break the backs of their Archer units, or to swoop around the back of a nearly defeated enemy. If it looks like you are going to lose a battle, just retreat. Unless you are trying to seriously role play this game, living on another day to pass on your seed is much more worth it than dying for a battle that is already lost.

Chariot archers are brutal, and can tear up an army if there are no units to counter them or scare them off. I think they’re technically classified as heavy cavalry too, so trying to fight them with anything other than triarii or spear infantry can be very bad. Chariot archers can also charge infantry and other units with good results, which was a surprise the first time I saw it happen. They are not your typical wimpy archer unit, that’s for sure.

Heavy chariots are brutal too, and will decimate standard roman cavalry like equites and legionary cavalry.

Not only does an arena let you hold games, but a hippodrome lets you hold races as well. To increase happiness, a nice amount too might I add, change your city to hold daily/monthly/yearly races & games. It doesn't change this for you automatically when building the hippodrome.

Oh something I noticed. If take you over the towers, they'll start shooting at the enemy down in the streets. heh the towers in Rome had arrow slits on both sides of the tower. Whenever the Romans would march by the ones I had captured, they would open up on them.

When you make Assassins, have them kill everything in sight. Rebel captains, enemy faction captains, and the occasional enemy diplomat. I found them to be "soft" targets yet with every successful kill they have the chance to add a trait which should increase the chance of killing a higher level targets like an army general, enemy faction heirs, and so on. The occasional sabotage mission where you send them into a city before a siege to destroy a structure builds experience too. Just don't go too crazy and destroy too many things that may be of use.

Like assassins, have warships kill everything in sight in order to get experience so they can hold their own when you finally start making enemies of the other Roman factions that I notice have substantial navies. Also remember, like army units, they can get retrained for better weaponry and replenished too at dock facilities.

Since October 6th, this faq has almost doubled in size now in 21 pages in Word and over 8000 words. Thanks to the gonegolders for your input. If you have any additions please put them here and I'll add them to the faq.

Would it be possible to include things such as links to good R:TW mods and technical tweaks like the resolution tweak in the FAQ? Unfortunately I don't know what they are but hopefully others can help out with this. Thanks!

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Let us be thankful we have an occupation to fill. Work hard, increase production, prevent accidents and be happy.

Let us be thankful we have commerce. Buy more. Buy more now. Buy. And be happy.

Since October 6th, this faq has almost doubled in size now in 21 pages in Word and over 8000 words. Thanks to the gonegolders for your input. If you have any additions please put them here and I'll add them to the faq.

Since there's no separate thread as of yet for Rome Total War questions/advice I figured I'd contribute a bit of both in this thread and if Naednek can add it later if he wants.

My advice for assassins: When you make them, have them kill everything in sight. Rebel captains, enemy faction captains, the occassional enemy diplomat. I found them to be "soft" targets yet with every successful kill they have the chance to add a trait which should increase the chance of killing a higher level targets like an army general, enemy faction heirs, and so on. The occasional sabotage mission where you send them into a city before a siege to destroy a structure builds experience too. Just don't go too crazy and destroy too many things which may be of use.

My advice for warships: Like assassins, have them kill everything in sight in order to get experience so they can hold their own when you finally start making enemies of the other Roman factions which I notice have substantial navies. Also remember, like army units, they can get retrained for better weaponry and replenished too at dock facilities.

Question about AI reinforcements during a siege: When conducting a siege, is it even worth it to have AI reinforcements? I had a city surrounded on three sides and the enemy was drawn off to one part of the city while I was breaching the walls on the other side. However, my so-called reinforcements didn't seem to try and breach the walls and in one siege where the reinforcements were behind me they actually stopped outside the gate and wouldn't enter the city. The troops under my command had to capture the city on their own and the streets ran red with my enemy's blood of course. But it would have been easier if my AI reinforcement pitched in a little.

Correction or clarification of one of the Tips in the FAQ:

Quote

# If you bribe a city you don't get the troops in it so make sure you have troops with your diplomat to move in right away or the city will (always?) revolt at the end of the turn. It is a bit annoying that you can't bribe troops to join you, but it was pretty unbalancing in M:TW anyway

Actually, not only was I able to bribe some Germanic family members while attacking the Germanic tribes who became part of my family tree I am able to bribe captains of enemy armies as well whose troops I then was able to control. Should have made more diplomats early on. :oops:

So you may not get the troops inside a city (haven't really bribed a city much since the few times I tried I wasn't successful), but I have had good luck bribing an army in the field!

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Let us be thankful we have an occupation to fill. Work hard, increase production, prevent accidents and be happy.

Let us be thankful we have commerce. Buy more. Buy more now. Buy. And be happy.

I think I'm going to start a seperate thread. There hasn't been much activity over the weekend on it. I do not know how much was added on Thursday (before GG died) so I don't know if it was slow on that too. We could just be out of questions.

I'm wondering if the thread being stickied is hard to find. But then again, there's been over 200 views over the weekend, so who knows.

I think I'm going to start a seperate thread. There hasn't been much activity over the weekend on it. I do not know how much was added on Thursday (before GG died) so I don't know if it was slow on that too. We could just be out of questions.

I'm wondering if the thread being stickied is hard to find. But then again, there's been over 200 views over the weekend, so who knows.

Is it possible to bribe a stack on enemy troops and get the troops? So far I've only been able to bribe another factions family member, and get just him and not his army. If I bribe other units without family members, they just disperse into the fields.

Is it possible to bribe a stack on enemy troops and get the troops? So far I've only been able to bribe another factions family member, and get just him and not his army. If I bribe other units without family members, they just disperse into the fields.

As Julii I was able to buy whole stacks from the Brutii. Perhaps you can only do it if you are Roman bribing other Romans?